XVII
FROM DEAD HANDS
At the head of the file, Captain Tony advanced through theclearing, and what with his flowing black beard, his portly form,and a certain dramatic swagger which he possessed, he looked soentirely Italian and operatic that you expected to hear him at anymoment burst out in a sonorous basso. With a sweeping gesture heflung down upon the table two brown canvas bags, which opened anddischarged from gaping mouths a flood of golden coins.
His histrionic instinct equal to the high demands of the moment,Captain Tony stood with folded arms and gazed upon us with ahaughty and exultant smile.
Slinker and the cross-eyed man shouted aloud. They ran andclutched at the coins with a savage greed.
"Gold, gold--the real stuff! It's the doubloons all right--where'sthe rest of 'em?" These cries broke from Slinker and Hornyconfusedly as the gold slid jingling between their eager fingers.
"The rest of 'em is--where they is," pronounced Tony oracularly."Somewheres in the sand of the cave, of course. We'll dig 'em upto-morrow morning.
"What was the point in not digging 'em all up while you was aboutit?" demanded Slinker, lowering. "What was the good o' digging upjest these here couple o' bag's and quitting?"
"Because we didn't dig 'em up," responded Tony darkly. "Becausethese was all ready and waiting. Because all we had to do was tosay 'Thankee,' to the feller that handed 'em out."
"I say," interposed one of the party nervously, "what's the good ofthat kind of talk? They ain't any sense in hunting trouble, thatever I heard of!" He glanced over his shoulder uneasily.
The rest burst out in a guffaw.
"Chris is scared. He's been a-going along looking behind him eversince. Chris will have bad dreams to-night--he'll yell if a owlhoots." But I thought there was a false note in the laughter ofmore than one.
"Oh, of course," remarked Slinker with indignant irony, "me andHorny ain't interested in this at all. We jest stayed bumminground camp here 'cause we was tired. When you're through with thissort of bunk and feel like getting down to business, why jestmention it, and maybe if we ain't got nothing better to do we'lllisten to you."
"I was jest telling you, wasn't I?" demanded Tony. "Only that foolChris had to butt in. We got these here bags of doubloons, as Isays, without havin' to dig for 'em--oncet we had found the cave,which it's no thanks to old Washtubs we ain't looking for it yet.We got these here bags right out of the fists of a skeleton. Mostof him was under a rock, which had fell from the roof and pinnedhim down amidships. Must of squashed him like a beetle, I guess.But he'd still kep' his hold on the bags." I turned aside, forfear that any one should see how white I was. Much too white to beaccounted for even by this grisly story. To the rest, these poorbones might indeed bear mute witness to a tragedy, but a tragedylacking outlines, vague, impersonal, without poignancy. To me,they told with dreadful clearness the last sad chapter of the taleof Peter, Peter who had made me so intimately his confidante, whoselove and hopes and solitary strivings I knew all about. Struckdown in the moment of his triumph by a great stupid lump ofsoulless stone, by a blind, relentless mechanism which had been atwork from the beginning, timing that rock to fall--just then. Notthe moment before, not the moment after, out of an eternity ofmoments, but at that one instant when Peter stooped for the last ofhis brown bags--and then I rejected this, and knew that there wasnothing stupid or blind about it--and wondered whether it wereinstead malicious, and whether all might have been well with Peterif he had obeyed the voice that bade him leave the crucifix forBill--
Vaguely I heard around me a babble of exclamations and conjectures.Murmurs of interest rose even from our captive band. Then cameSlinker's voice, loud with sudden fear:
"Say, you don't suppose the--the Bones would of got away with therest of the coin somehow, do you?" he demanded.
"Got away with it?" Tony contemptuously thrust aside thepossibility. "Got away with it how? He sure didn't leave theisland with it, did he? Would he of dug it up from one place jestto bury it in another? Huh! Must of wanted to work if he did!Now my notion is that this happened to one of the guys that wasburying the gold, and that the rest jest left him there for a sortof scarecrow to keep other people out of the cave."
"But the gold?" protested Slinker. "They wouldn't leave that for ascarecrow, would they?"
"Maybe not," admitted Tony, "but suppose that feller died awfulslow, and went on hollering and clutching at the bags? And theycouldn't of got that rock off'n him without a block and tackle, ordone much to make things easy for him if they had, him being jest asmear, as you may say. Well, that cave wouldn't be a pleasantplace to stay in, would it? And no one would have the nerve tosnatch them bags away to bury 'em, 'cause a dying man, especiallywhen he dies hard, can have an awful grip. So what they done wasjust to shovel the sand in on the gold they'd stowed away and lightout quick. And what we got to do to-morrow is to go there and digit up."
If the ingenuity of this reasoning was more remarkable than itslogic, the pirates were not the men to find fault with it. Indeed,how many human hopes have been bolstered up with arguments nosounder? Desire is the most eloquent of advocates, and the fiveruffians had only to listen to its voice to enjoy in anticipationall the fruits of their iniquitous schemes. The sight of thegolden coins intoxicated them. They played with the doubloons likechildren, jingling them in their calloused palms, guessing atweight and value, calculating their equivalent in the joy ofliving. Laughter and oaths resounded. Mr. Tubbs, with a somewhatanxious air, endeavored to keep himself well to the fore, claiminga share in the triumph with the rest. There was only the thinnestveil of concealment over the pirates' mockery. "Old Washtubs" wasironically encouraged in his role of boon companion. His air ofswaggering recklessness, of elderly dare-deviltry, provokeduproarious amusement. When they sat down to supper Mr. Tubbs wasinstalled at the head of the table. They hailed him as thediscoverer who had made their fortunes. From their talk it wasclear that there had been much difficulty about finding the cave,and that for a time Mr. Tubbs's position had been precarious.Finally Captain Magnus had stumbled upon the entrance.
"Jest in time," as he grimly reminded Mr. Tubbs, "to save you aheader over the cliff."
"Ha, ha!" cackled Mr. Tubbs hysterically, "you boys will have yourlittle joke, eh? Knew well enough you couldn't get along withoutthe old man, didn't you? Knew you was goin' to need an oldfinancial head to square things in certain quarters--a head whatunderstands how to slip a little coin into the scales o' justice tomake 'em tilt the right way. Oh, you can't fool the old man, he,he!"
While the marauders enjoyed their supper, the women prisoners werebidden to "set down and stay sot," within sweep of Captain Tony'seye. Mr. Shaw and Cuthbert Vane still held the position they hadoccupied all afternoon, with their backs propped against a palmtree. Occasionally they exchanged a whisper, but for the most partwere silent, their cork helmets jammed low over their watchfuleyes. I was deeply curious to know what Mr. Shaw had made of thestrange story of the skeleton in the cave. He could hardly haveaccepted Captain Tony's explanation of it, which displayed, indeed,an imperfect knowledge of the legend of the _Bonny Lass_. Mightnot the Scotchman, by linking this extraordinary discovery with myunexplained request of him this morning, have arrived already atsome glimmering of the truth? I hoped so, and longed to impart tohim my own sure knowledge that the confident expectations of thefreebooters for the morrow were doomed to disappointment. Thereseemed a measure of comfort in this assurance, for our moment ofgreatest peril well might be that in which the pirates, with thegold in their possession and on the point of fleeing from theisland, recalled the respectable because so truthful maxim thatdead men tell no tales. Therefore in the postponement of thecrucial moment lay our best hope of rescue or escape.
On the other hand, I fancied them returning from the cave surly anddisappointed, ready to vent their wrath on us. All, except theunspeakable Magnus, had shown so far a rough good nature, evenamusement at our pligh
t, but you felt the snarl at the corner ofthe grinning lips. You knew they would be undependable as savagesor vicious children, who find pleasure in inflicting pain. Andthen there was always my own hideous danger as the favored of thewolfish captain--
And I wondered, desperately, if I might buy safety for us all atthe price of the secret of the _Island Queen_, if a promise fromthe five scoundrels around the table would have more meaning thantheir wild boasts and shoutings now?
And now the night that I unutterably dreaded was upon us. But thepirates still thought of nothing but the gold. They had exhaustedtheir own portable supplies of liquor, and were loud in theirdenunciations of our bone-dry camp, as they termed it. Mr. Tubbsenlarged upon the annoyance which Mr. Shaw's restrictions in thismatter had been to him, and regretted that he had long agoexhausted the small amount of spirituous refreshment which he hadbeen able to smuggle in. Tony, however, was of another mind. "Anda good thing, too," he declared, "that you guys can't boozeyourselves blind before morning, or there wouldn't be much goldtook out of that there cave to-morrow. Once we make portsomewheres with that chest of treasure aboard you can pour downenough to irrigate the Mojave Desert if you like."
It was Tony, too, who intercepted a tentative movement of CaptainMagnus in my direction, and ordered me into the cabin with my auntand Miss Browne. Through the walls of the hut we heard loud andeager talk of the morrow and its certain golden harvest as thepirates made their dispositions for the night. Then the voicestrailed off sleepily and silence succeeded, broken only by theceaseless murmur of the waves around the island.
Spanish Doubloons Page 17
